Thursday, February 26, 2015

Today I have completed the last 3 tables for the time being for wilderness adventuring. As need arises I may create new tables for desert and seafaring locals but currently my needs are met by what is provided. Please feel free to enjoy and make use and if you have suggestions for improvement I would love to hear your thoughts.

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Dark, damp, and never with out danger; there is plenty of trouble and adventure to find in the swamps, jungles, and marshes. For the 3rd instalment of my series of wilderness d100 tables is the marshlands. As always feel free to use and leave a comment on your thoughts about this table or any of the others. More to come so stay tuned.

Sunday, February 22, 2015

Things are moving along on my project for d100 table for each of the main adventure environments. Today I have for you underground areas. Many dangerous creatures lurk beneath the earth and in caves, caverns, and the like. Beware of ravines and sinkholes or falling rocks from above.

Friday, February 20, 2015

I have always loved random tables, be they for a quick bit of inspiration, an adventure seed, or just a side distraction to throw at a party on a trek through the wilderness. It is through these random tables a bit of mystery to a situation when needed can be rolled into existence.

Over the years I have collected many tables from various sources including books, articles, and some great community created ones, however non really had everything that I was looking for. I sought a very large broad selection of events, monsters, and traps for the most common types of wilderness environments. Being a believer in building tools when non exist for a project at hand I have began constructing my own tables for these environs.

The tables are d100 in nature giving a nice large selection to pick from while not needing to be more then 1 page front and back when printed off and placed in a binder for game use. Originally I began the project for my 3.5 campaign but have since tried to make them more system neutral the best I could. Being mostly monster encounters I have grabbed from what I will mostly use for reference which is the various monster manuals and the tome of horrors complete.

So with out further ado feel free to make use of the first of my tables, the forests, and let me know what you think. I will be posting the rest of the tables as I complete them and making updates accordingly.

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Greetings and welcome all who come to peruse my random thoughts on the OSR and RPGs in general. I am still fairly new to the community but have been an avid collector of TSR products, overall nerd, and believer in the spirit of the OSR for as long as I have played in RPGs(rulings not rules).

I have been a DM of 3/3.5 D&D since I was the impressionable age of 13 when I first found online the free introductory adventure on the WOTC website, Into the darkness, which I ran for some friends right out the gate modifying the few NPCs with traits of people we all knew well much to every ones delight. From that point on I was hooked and have been a DM ever since. I asked my dad to get me the introductory box to D&D 3rd edition but after he spoke with the comic book store he opted to get me the actual players guide and manual, spending more then I expected him to much to my surprise on a new hobby, knowing I would quickly out grow the simple box set and set me on my path that has lasted the rest of my life. That Christmas my parents got me the monster manual and I was set for a great many years running adventures for my friends right up until I moved away after college.

Until recently this has worked well for me but I always felt things were more convoluted then necessary with the rules. I have home brewed and house rules that I have ran with for many years but things have still felt off. Then I had the good luck and pleasure of attending my first gaming convention with my brother in law in November, U-Con, and met Ryan Thompson of Gamers and Grognards who I had read his blog on several occasions before and introduced me to my first game of Swords & Wizardry. I finally found what was missing! This game has a simple but robust rule set but was still everything I loved of D&D. After grabbing the freely available complete rules I knew where the path was taking me and down the rabbit hole I went, and into the OSR family I was born. Since then I have had the pleasure of meeting several other like minded people with in the community who have been both very welcoming and exceptionally helpful.

I hope this blog will serve as a useful resource to not only my growing home brew world of Aeril but to all of you who wander this way looking for charts, tables, resources, and ideas for your games as well. This will not be a blog where I get on a podium and preach about any particular rule set or complain about things within the hobby of role-playing, should I deviate from this feel free to call me on it!

Currently my world of Aeril is in its design infancy but it has a group of players currently running through it helping to grow. It will play host to places and names some of you may be familiar with as I am a avid collector of older TSR modules as well as areas and adventures I have designed over the years but never got the chance to fully play with in my previous campaigns. So come with me on this journey as I leave behind my past as a 17 year veteran of the 3/3.5 era of gaming and travel to a simpler time of high fantasy and grand adventure.

About Me

I have been gaming off and on for close to 17 years now mostly playing D&D 3.0/3.5 with a little pathfinder and the occasional GURPS game here and there. Since finding my calling in the OSR with Swords & Wizardry I am looking to give back to the gaming community which has brought me many years of joy.
My other hobbies include collecting and playing retro gaming systems & games (which was new when I was a kid) and ham radio.